


Homeless Maddy

by AlessNox



Series: The Maddy Saga [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Cell Phones, Christmas, Danger, Death, Drama, Food, Gen, Homeless Network, Hope, Mourning, Murder, Mystery, POV Outsider, Reichenbach, Romance, Singing, hardship, living rough, mangling of Beatles songs, mention of violence, sausage, season two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-11 14:28:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/799750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlessNox/pseuds/AlessNox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you sit in the right place, you might meet the guy in the long coat and make a little money. Maddy meets Sherlock Holmes planning to make a pound or two, but gets more than she expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Podfic available:  
> 
> 
> [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/HomelessMaddyAlessNoxPart1)

They say if you sit at the right spot in London, at the right time of day, you may meet the rich guy in the black coat and make a little money.

He'll ask you to do some simple job, or find out some information and then slip you the notes.

Sometimes its twenty pounds, sometimes fifty. Someone once made _two hundred pounds_ for finding a green camera bag that had been thrown away in a rubbish bin.

Maddy can use a little money today. So she sits here on the bridge, even though she thinks that meeting this bloke is about as likely as meeting Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Maddy needs the money because she spent most of hers the day before, and the pack of biscuits that she had saved for dinner is over half gone. She isn't completely broke, not yet. She has some money in her pocket, but it's the kind that jingles, not the kind that folds.

She had almost decided to give up and look in the bin behind the Chinese restaurant for some day old dumplings when she saw him, a tall man with curly black hair striding down the sidewalk. At first she thought that he would pass her by like everyone else on the street trying so hard not to see her _too_ thin arms, tattered shoes, and worn clothing. But he walked over and sat down beside her staring at her with a glare that made her begin to believe that she wasn't actually invisible.

"Hello," he said, "what's your name?"

"Maddy," she said, "You're that man aren't you? The rich man in the black coat."

"I'm not rich," he said, "but I am richer than you. Do you think that you could help me, Maddy? I'll pay you."

"Okay," Maddy said, "but I'm not selling nothing. I don't sell drugs or my body if that's what you need, and I don't hurt no one, but I could use some cash, yeah."

"I'm glad to hear that you have some convictions, but I could tell that by your necklace and your right glove. Here," he said handing her a fifty pound note wrapped around a scrap of paper.

"Report back to me at 221B Baker street. Find this, and there may be more work for you later." The man stood and glided down the walkway. He raised his hand and escaped in a taxi. For someone like Maddy, that was as mythical an exit as any sleigh pulled by reindeer.

The note looked real enough, and fifty pounds meant a good dinner, and a warm place to sleep tonight. The scrap of paper read: **White rain boots, Slippery Joe's sausages, and a pair of brown haired dogs (beagles) all on the same street.**

It was the weirdest list that Maddy had ever seen, but for fifty pounds, she'd find it even if it took her all night.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The key to it all was the sausages.

Maddy liked sausages. Before she had come to London she was mad about them. Granddad, God rest his soul, had been German. He used to make sausages. When she was too young to know about drug dealers or prostitutes she knew what cuts of meat made the best sausages. She knew that it was a rooky mistake to cut the meat too close.

 _"One bone in the tooth and they lose trust in you,"_ he'd said, _"And once they lose confidence in the sausage, It will never again taste as good to them."_ She had never, not once, found a piece of bone in _his_ sausage.

Maddy also knew the importance of seasoning, and the different amount of grinding that you needed to make different kinds of sausages. Granddad's sausages were _"chunky"_. He said that a sausage needed to have a bit of texture to it. Most of the sausages that she had eaten since her arrival in London had disappointed her, but Slippery Joe's was a restaurant chain that knew how to make a good sausage.

Maddy had tried to get a job at a Slippery Joe's once. They had looked her over and turned her down without even offering her an explanation. She still liked their sausages though, chunky, if not a bit under-spiced for her taste.

There were five Slippery Joe's in London. She hung around the front of them until she was driven off, sometimes by the owners, sometimes by bobbies who glared at her, reminding her that loitering in a public street was a punishable offense. She moved along.

While she was walking slowly past the third Slippery Joe's she heard a bark. She turned to see, further down the road, a pair of brown beagles coming out of a jewelry store. The little dogs were held by an elderly lady wearing a blue coat topped with a black fur collar. They walked slowly past Maddy, one dog sniffing at her feet before the woman pulled it along. She looked back at the jewelry store wondering momentarily if she should go in, but although she could last for ten minutes inside a Slippery Joe's before being asked to leave, ( _Homeless people did buy food, occasionally_ ), It was unlikely that she would even get past the threshold of a jewelry store before the police were called on her. So, she turned to follow the woman with the dogs.

The old woman moved down the street slowly, letting the dogs sniff cars and people, and pee on the lamp posts. Maddy had to stroll behind her looking in the store windows to make it seem as if she didn't have a purpose. That's when she saw the display: a mannequin carrying a rainbow colored umbrella and wearing red rain boots. Behind it on the rack were a host of rain boots in different colors including white.

A smile cracked Maddy's lips. She put her face against the glass and kissed it, so happy for a moment that she had solved the puzzle that she almost didn't notice that the old woman had turned a corner. Maddy broke into a run stunning a couple by rushing between them and getting a few choice words at her back that would be sure to reflect badly on the S.O.B. if there was any _karma_ in the world. Maddy was still optimistic enough to believe in _karma_ even if she didn't believe in fairness. Those bad words would come back to that man later when he sat in a pub with that girl drinking. She'd look at his smiling face as he took a sip of beer and wonder if those bad words would be said to her if she ever chose to end it with him, and after realizing that they would be, she would decide never to begin at all.

Luckily the old woman was slow. One of the dogs peed on a brown, brick fence before she pulled it along and walked inside a building. Maddy warred with herself walking up to the fence and then back two times before deciding to risk entering because the door had a glass front, and there was no doorman to scare her away.

She looked through the glass at the woman who unlocked her post box with a key with a dangling pink rabbit's foot. She slammed it closed but the edge caught. She tried pushing it, but it jutted out stubbornly, so she left it and turned toward the door.

Maddy slid to the side, hiding. One dog barked at her, but the old woman pulled him away shuffling into the lift, the doors closing behind her with a ding. Maddy rushed into the abandoned lobby and looked at the half closed mailbox. The number was 215.

Paper and pen were a luxury that she didn't have, so she repeated the number to remember it, making up a song on the spot, she sang.

TWO FIFTEEN

SHOES WASHED CLEAN

SAUSAGES CUT TRUE AND LEAN.

It wasn't great, but it would last until she could walk the long way to Baker street. She didn't take cabs, and she didn't like the underground. She might occasion a bus, but walking was safer and she might be able to make some spare change on the way.

.

.

She regretted her decision when Mug caught up to her at Waterloo bridge. He grabbed her arm a little too firmly. "Word is you've been touched by the rich man in the coat," he said.

"What do you want?" Maddy asked in voice braver than she felt.

"People who get lucky breaks ought to be generous," he said.

"You mean like you were when you found that stash of money in a skip last month? I never saw a bit of that. You didn't give me nothin' though there was more than enough."

"But there's a difference," he said.

"What's that?"

"The difference is you owe me."

"I don't owe you the time of day," Maddy said pulling out of his grip and trying to look confident as she walked briskly away. Mug ran after her and grabbed her with both his hands. "You let go of me!" she screamed.

"You don't know what I do for you," Mug said. "How many girls like you survive so long without a protector. I let you sleep on my street, and I don't ask for nothin' but I could you know."

"Your street? You don't own it. You're just a bully!"

"I don't know what sheltered life you came from, princess, but there ain't nothin' free. When you get money, you give it to me if you know what's good for you. There are other ways that I could take it out of you, but I don't. I like you, you remind me of my little sister, so I let you stay for nothin', but when you get somethin' you give it to me."

"No!" she said and tried to pull away. A woman turned to stare so he smiled and put his arm firmly around her neck, pulling her away and under the bridge where no one could see. Maddy could feel his warm breath on her cheek as he pretended that they were a couple having just had an argument. She tried to move out of his grip, but his arms were like iron. He pulled her behind a concrete barrier and pushed her against the wall, his breath foul, the stubble on his chin, making him look like he hadn't washed in days, which was most likely true.

"Maddy," he growled at her, "You're a thin, ugly little thing, but don't think that makes you safe. There are people who take girls like you and lock 'em in a room with nothin' but a bed and too few sheets to hang themselves. There are some men who even enjoy bouncing up and down on a pile of bones like yourself, and they don't care if you break, so don't act like I'm the worst thing out there. Don't act like there aren't worse things than enjoying the benefits of my protection, cause ugly as you are, even I get bored sometimes."

"Take it!" Maddy screamed throwing all the money she had left on the ground, the change rolling away across the concrete. "Take the money and enjoy it. You never gave me nothing but a headache and a bruised arm in all of the time that I've known you, and you ain't gettin' nothing else from me ever again." Then Maddy turned and ran, not watching as he chased after the money which was blowing away from them. She ran until she couldn't hear the sound of the ferry, until she couldn't smell the water in the air. Then she hid in an alcove of a building, a tiny space that was frequented only by herself and a nest of pigeons. She sat out of sight until she had caught her breath, pulling her clothes closer around herself, and rubbing her face as she waited for her heart to stop hammering.

She would have to find another place to stay. Mug was stupid, but he was persistent. Once he got an idea in his mind, it didn't go away. She couldn't forget how he said that one day he'd beat the hell out of Dandy if he ever called him an Stupid Arse again and Dandy never did, but he beat him anyway. It took him a few weeks of repeating the words to himself, but he thought it so often that he couldn't rest until he had done it just to get it out of his head.

Now he had threatened her twice, first to sell her to a prostitution ring, and second to do her himself just 'cause he's bored. She knew that as he drank the money she had given him, he would think on it more and more until one night as she lay in the cardboard box that had been her home for most of a month, he would saunter over and ask her to pay again for his protection. Maddy huddled in the privacy of her own coat, and cried.

Night had long fallen when Maddy finally found her way to the step of 221B Baker street. She had probably missed meeting the man. Regular people liked meeting in the daytime, business hours they called it, but then again the rich man in the coat could hardly be called a regular person could he? Maddy didn't care. She wasn't going back to her old place ever again. She would be content to wait here till morning for the man to return. She didn't expect money. The man paid first when he asked for help. No one ever said that he paid afterwards too. Strange that, expecting that he could trust people like her to do the work after they were paid. Trusting that they would feel obligated to report back to him without promising anything in return.

She was standing in front of a cafe. It had closed hours ago, but she could still smell the baked bread. It smelled heavenly. It reminded her of the fresh rolls baked by Maman Mildred, not her real mom. They would come out of the oven hot and brown and she'd use a knife to pry them out of the muffin tin. Then she'd put a dab of butter on top of the perfectly arched surface only to watch it slide down the side. Maddy would snatch one up then, letting the butter cool her burning fingers as she tried to eat the steaming thing straight from the oven. Then Maman would clap her hands and shoo Maddy away, but she'd let her keep the roll.

Maman was dead now, and there was no food, only the smell. It would have to be enough, because Maddy hadn't bought any food before Mug had cornered her under the bridge. She turned as she heard the sound of a brisk footstep on the sidewalk. It was the man in the black coat. He walked up to her.

"Well?" he asked.

For a moment, her mind was completely blank, then she thought SHOES and sang...

_"Two fifteen, Shoes washed clean, sausages cut true and lean."_

"What was that?" he asked.

"I found the street. The slippery Joe's on Mornington. There's a store selling white rain boots, and an old woman with two brown beagles came out of a jewelry store there and went into a brick-fronted apartment complex around the corner with a glass door, her flat was two fifteen." The man in the black coat's eyes widened, and a hint of a smile touched his lips. Then he turned and walked up the steps and into the building.

Maddy leaned against the gate outside of the flat. The metal pushed into her back jabbing her through her thin coat. She hadn't expected anything, but still half a smile seemed like small return for the trouble, but then again, it wasn't the man's fault that she'd lost her money. She couldn't even claim to have had it stolen. Her stomach growled. It was too late to try the Chinese restaurant. Other folks would have cleared it out by now, and it was too far away. Maddy would have to find another place to go. Maybe closer to the city center she could scrounge enough change to get something out of a machine. At least she had had the smell of a good meal to keep her company.

She was just turning to go when the door opened and two men walked out. The man in the coat and a shorter man with blond hair. Apparently they had phoned a taxi because it showed up moments after the door opened. The shorter man got in but the man in the coat turned and thrust something in her hand before rushing away. She looked down to find a pair of chopsticks and a box of Chinese take away. It hadn't even been opened. A smile crossed Maddy's face and she walked around the corner to find a private place to eat it. It was the best food she had had all year, not quite Maman's rolls, but still heavenly.


	3. Chapter 3

Things went alright for Maddy after that night. She thought of the man in the coat as a good luck charm. After the takeaway, she met a girl who told her about a shelter near the river. Because she was feeling good, Maddy made a good impression on the night manager, Catherine, who asked her to help in the back. Now, she had a job of sorts. No pay of course, but she could overnight at the shelter as long as she helped out and that was worth a lot. Most days she got her money panhandling near tourist places. They didn't like you to do that, and once a man even hit her with a rock to get her to leave the front of his stand.

Maddy didn't really have friends, friends help in thick and thin, but she knew people who shared from time to time and she called them friends. One friend was Abud. One day he rushed up to her with a guitar that he had found in a skip.  
"Can you sing?" he asked as he sat on the edge of a pallet trying to tune it. "If you are a performer they won't throw you out of the tourist areas. I knew a man who played a flute and he made enough money to buy a bicycle. If you go in with me, I'll split it with you."

"I...I don't think I know how to sing." Maddy said, "I haven't done it since I was a child."

"You're still a child girl," Abud said so that Maddy noticed for the first time the grey streaks in his dark black hair, "Try for me ... please."

"What do you want me to sing?" Maddy asked.

"All I know how to play is Yellow submarine." He replied.

"Do you know the words, I only know the chorus." Maddy confessed.

"Don't worry, nobody knows the words, we can fake it." Abud said stoking the chords which were only slightly out of tune.

That afternoon Maddy and Abud sat in Trafalgar square getting stares from stunned Londonites most of whom tried their best to ignore the awful strains of "We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine..."

The noise caused more than one person to stop in shock at how bad they were. The tourists passing by only saw that a crowd was forming. They smiled, snapped photos, and threw coins into the battered cardboard box beside Maddy. After three hours, Maddy started to go hoarse, so they took their winnings and got a bite to eat.

Sitting on the steps sharing a banoffee pie Abud told her about his dream to go to Wembley stadium and watch a football game. "Sometimes, I stand outside and I can hear the crowd yelling, and I imagine myself there with paint on my face yelling along with them."

"One day, when we get a real gig I'll buy you a ticket." Maddy said and they laughed.

Abud and Maddy went back two days later and tried again. They branched out to singing "Hey Jude" because someone at the shelter had been able to teach it to her, and Abud could pick out the notes.

As she stood waiting for Abud to return from an expedition to find spiced tea, she saw the man in the black coat again. She ran toward him excitedly, but as she approached her steps slowed. He was not alone. The short man that she had seen before was trailing him as he walked at a brisk pace across the square. Maddy slowed because she knew that no one was ever happy to see her coming. Who was she to him? Just one of the faceless homeless people in the city. He probably didn't remember her name...no, she was certain that he did not.

Maddy was standing in the walkway, her hands dropped at her side as people diverted around her. She thought for a moment that the man in the black coat saw her, but he went on about his business, and she returned to her place on the steps. Abud hadn't found spiced tea, but he brought two cups of regular tea which felt good in the chill of the morning. They weren't making much that day, and Abud had a lead on a manual labor job at the wharf, so after another half hour, they parted.

Maddy was walking down a back street when she heard footsteps. Her heart quickened, but she knew better than to run. She needed to get somewhere with more people. She glanced over her shoulder but couldn't see anyone. Then she stood in the alley and stared behind her. No one was there, but when she turned, he was in front of her, the man with the black coat.

He was tall. She had never noticed how tall before, but then again she had never stood this close to him. He stared down at her with an expression that she found unreadable. He must have noticed her in the square. Maybe he was mad that she had been following him and he came to tell her to stop, or worse to beat her. She crouched away from him.

"Hello Maddy." He said.

Maddy looked up, "You remembered my name?" she said surprised.

"Of course I remembered you." He said, "I've been looking for you. You did good work for me. That lead you gave me was excellent. No one expects an old woman with dogs to be an extortionist."

Maddy looked up hopefully, "So, do you have something you need done now? I can do it."

"No." He said.

Maddy's shoulders fell. She was hoping that seeing him meant good luck after the disappointing day, but it seemed that she wasn't going to make any money out of it. She dropped her head and thought of where she would go next, but then she noticed that he wasn't leaving. First Maddy was hopeful, then she started to get scared again. "What do you want?" She asked.

"I want to give you something, and ask you something." Sherlock said.

"What do you want to ask me?" She questioned sliding her foot back unobtrusively in case she had to run.

"I want to ask you if you will become part of my homeless network."

"Your what?" She asked surprised.

"My homeless network." The man said. "Occasionally I need information that cannot be obtained through traditional organized networks, therefore I have organized my own. You have proven yourself capable, and I would like you to report to me. In exchange, I will pay you a modest amount on a regular basis."

Maddy thought this sounded too good to be true, and she knew that things that sound too good to be true usually are. "Report, report what? I don't know nothin'. "

"It is certainly true that your knowledge of Beatles songs is hopelessly flawed, but it would be a gross exaggeration to say that you know nothing Maddy."

"What do you want to give me?" She asked.

At that he reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone. It was a cheap phone. The kind that they advertised "pay as you go" plans for. She took it. The screen lit up green and blue when she opened it and it chimed.

"Dial 055" he told her.

She did, and she heard a ring. She looked up to see him reach into his pocket. He pulled out a very much more expensive phone and turned it toward her. She saw her name printed on the screen.

"You...you bought this for me?" Maddy asked surprised. She tilted her head to the side looking to see if the man was hiding a red suit under his coat. He really did seem to act like Santa.

"I told you that I've been looking for you." He said.

Maddy frowned, "what's the catch?" she asked, "What kind of information do you want?"

"Nothing harmful." He said, " I just want you to be my eyes and look into places that I may never go."

Maddy turned the phone over in her hands holding it with the tips of her fingers. "Is this phone poisonous, or does it explode? I saw that in a movie once."

The man actually smiled at that. "What a clever idea. Maybe I should watch more movies as John says. No, it will not explode, and it isn't poisonous. Well, not any more poisonous than any other modern electronic source of rare earth metals."

"Then how do I get paid?" She asked.

"By phone." He said, "Wire transfer. You will have to get yourself a form of identification to redeem it."

Maddy frowned. "And what are you going to ask me?"

"I don't know." He said, " or I simply would have asked you now. I need an answer Maddy. I told John that I'd only be gone a moment. So will you or won't you?"

Maddy looked at the phone, and then up at the man who had given her the best curry chicken that she could ever remember tasting. "Yeah. I'll join." She said.

"Good," he replied, "Check the phone frequently. I will text you if I need your help. Don't call unless it is an emergency, and I mean someone is cutting off the head of the person that I have told you to find. If you are in trouble, don't bother to call. That's your own problem, do you understand?"

Maddy nodded. This kind of "friendship" she did understand. It made it all more real somehow.

"You will hear from me soon." He said, "and one other thing, you must tell no one that you are in the homeless network, no one at all. I have enemies, very bad enemies, and if you tell others, you would become a target. A target that I cannot defend. Do you understand?"

Maddy nodded once. She understood this as well. There were some things that you just didn't talk about for your own protection. She could tell by the way he gazed into her eyes as if he could read her brain waves, that he understood her too. Then the man spun on his heel and rushed out of the alley.

"Wait!" She yelled, "Who are you?" but the man had already turned the corner.

Maddy looked at the phone marveling at her luck, only half believing what he had said. He probably was a blackmailer looking for couples having affairs and things like that. She wasn't sure about it all yet, but something in her told her to trust the man, despite the fact that he never told her his name.

Maddy put the phone deep into her pocket and then started to walk back toward the shelter. Suddenly she heard a noise coming from her pocket. She pulled out the phone and heard the first few notes of yellow submarine. _How had he done that?_ She looked down. The message read...

**[My name is Sherlock Holmes]**

Her mouth dropped open. He had heard her. Then it started up again and another message popped up.

**[Delete that last message already.]**

Maddy grinned deleting the message before walking away with a spring in her step.


	4. Chapter 4

The payments were small. It was no job to support yourself on, but they were regular coming every two weeks on a Wednesday. Maddy began to feel almost like a regular person and not a blight on society as the mean security guard had told her when he found her trying to keep warm inside of an abandoned storage shed.

Catherine was nice, and never asked questions about Maddy's sudden disappearances. Sherlock's calls were always unexpected and usually urgent. Once it was a missing child that was being held by a particularly savage killer. Once a lost bag containing a book worth five hundred thousand pounds. Imagine it, that much for one book!

She also began to notice that Sherlock Holmes was somewhat well known. She never bought newspapers, but people left them around, and she was able to see that he was a minor celebrity.

One morning, early she received a text.

**[Alert all news Irene Adler sengoifkjaol]**

This worried Maddy. The Man in the Coat, that's what she called him in her head even though she knew his name, was always very precise with his instructions. This gibberish was worrying. Maybe he was being strangled and couldn't type properly. Of course that was ludicrous. Who would text while being strangled, and even if he would, he would probably text something like

_[Help I'm being strangled]_ instead of asking about some woman.

Thirty minutes later, a text came saying

**[disregard last message]**

Maddy looked at her phone. She wanted to ask the man if he was alright, but she knew better. Instead she decided to go to Baker street and look herself.

As Maddy wasn't in central London, she decided to brave the underground. Once, someone had cornered her there, and she had gone off trains ever since. She wedged herself in the corner of the car glaring at everyone with distrust, and wasn't happy until she breathed the surface air again. She hurried down the walkway making it to the front of Speedy's cafe in ten minutes, then she looked up. Nothing odd appeared to be happening.

Then Maddy smelled the food from the cafe. She was considering going in to grab a bite when the door to 221B opened and a man walked out. It wasn't the man in the coat or the short one. This man looked like he had walked directly out of the back cover of a finance magazine. He wore a black pinstriped suit with a red tie, a gold chain hung from his waistcoat pocket, and his dark coat was very fine with a red lining. He stood at the top of the step leaning on an umbrella as he gazed up and down the street.

Maddy stared at him as if he were an alien. It wasn't that she hadn't seen people dressed even finer than he, it was just that he wore the clothes as if he had done so all his life. A child of entitlement born with a silver spoon on his mouth.

Maddy wondered what it would have been like if she had been born rich and stayed that way. If she had never been forced to live on the streets. Despite what Sherlock Holmes said about not being rich, he had certainly been born rich just like this man. If Maman Mildred were alive, she would have called them _'Two posh boys who don't know the price of milk'._ Maddy smiled.

A black car pulled up to the door from around the corner where it had been waiting, and the man walked toward it. Just before he stepped in, the man looked her straight in the eye as if he recognized her. Then he turned his gaze to the window above him and Maddy could see that Sherlock Holmes was looking out. He was holding a violin of all things.

Maddy looked back to see the fancy man smiling at her. Then he got into the car and drove away.

A few minutes later, Sherlock Holmes came to the door wearing a white shirt and a red robe. He handed her a message wrapped in a fifty pound note, and then wordlessly closed the door. The note said.

_Find out everything you can about the American who was shot at 44 Eaton square. Be careful._

_"Be careful?"_ Maddy looked around nervously deciding to skip the cafe after all. She walked away briskly in search of information and a more comfortable breakfast.


	5. Chapter 5

The Eaton Square thing was bust. The neighborhood was too rich for her to loiter in without being noticed. The police station was certainly no place to loiter. She did find out, however, that the body had been taken to the airport because the dead man was American, and he was going to be sent back home.

The airport was no easy place to go to on a good day. She walked around behind the gate and stood beside a loading dock hoping to catch a glimpse of the body being moved. The Americans were suspicious of people asking questions. They were afraid that people asking questions were reporters, and there was a rule about how no bodies could be photographed while there was a war on. When she tried to casually ask a stiff young man standing in a back loading area what they did with the bodies of Americans, he gave her a look that scared her near to death. She got out of there quickly and texted Sherlock.

**[Body delivered to airport to be sent home. Too scared to do more]**

**[Fine]**

He had texted back.

Maddy spent quite a while hiding in the back room of the shelter in case that man by the loading docks came looking for her. She was sure that he was a soldier by the way he stood. She hadn't noticed it until he had glared at her, but now she knew it for sure. That had always been Maddy's problem. She usually recognized things too late, but she had got out alright today, and now she knew what Sherlock meant by **_'be careful'_**.

At eleven that night, the phone rang. Maddy pulled it out of her pocket and stared at it. The man in the coat never rang. She cautiously clicked the phone on and said, "Hello."

"Hello Maddy?" A woman's voice said. The voice was crisp, silky, and expensive sounding. How had this woman gotten her phone number? How had she known her name? "This is Maddy isn't it?"

"Yes." Maddy said cautiously.

"This is Irene. I want to send a message to Sherlock. He's not there with you now is he?"

Maddy thought at first that Sherlock might have given her the number, but now she knew that he did not. This was one of his enemies and she did not know what to do. She said nothing.

"Tell Sherlock darling that I'd love to have dinner with him tomorrow. He knows where I live, but if he feels that it has too many bad memories then we can pick another place, he just needs to text me. Maddy are you there?"

Maddy hung up the phone. She was breathing rapidly and sweating. Sherlock had told her that he had enemies, and that soldier had been a killer. Now someone had her phone number. It was indeed a dangerous thing to work for Sherlock Holmes. Maddy wondered what to do. She realized that the safest thing to do would be to report.

**[Got phone call from someone named Irene. What should I do?]**

Maddy sat in the dark in the back room of the shelter waiting. The sounds of people snoring and getting up to use the bathroom filtered through the wall. She was tired, but she couldn't close her eyes without seeing the eyes of the soldier, without hearing the sound of the woman. Suddenly a text came through.

**[Meet me where I first gave you the phone at 1pm tomorrow. Dispose of this one as soon as possible. Understand.]**

**[Yes]**

She texted back, and then added.

**[Thank you]**

Maddy pulled on her coat, and ran out of the back door. She ran along the riverside until she got to a bridge, then she threw the phone as far as she could until it sank into the water of the Thames. She went back to the shelter and covered her head with her coat as she slept. She dreamt that the phone rang underwater and the silky voice kept saying, "Maddy, where are you Maddy?" It was terrifying.

The next day, Maddy made her way back to Trafalgar square. She sat on the steps watching the birds and wondering about her life. She sat there just thinking only rising as the noon sun peeked out of a cloud to remind her of the time. She ran toward the alley. As she approached, she thought that she saw him leaving, his coat flapping as he turned the corner. She started after him running, but then she tripped and fell sideways onto a bin. She stood up, dusting herself off, and noticed a box against the wall. It had her name on it.

She opened the box to find a smaller box inside. This box held something wrapped in black cloth. She slowly unwrapped it and found it to be a phone. This phone was fancier than the one she had before. It had internet access and a keyboard. Maddy's jaw dropped. Even the cloth that he had wrapped it in was valuable. It was a silk scarf. She wrapped the scarf around her neck and sat with her back against the wall as she looked at it. The background had her name on it. The phone had a feature to lock the screen and require a password. It had a selection of Beatles ringtones, and it had access to Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg. She looked in the messages. There was one.

**[Maddy,**

**I am now 1 on your speed dial.**

**Previous instructions still apply.]**

Maddy smiled and cried. He really was her good luck charm. She set the password on the phone to _submarine_ and hid it deep inside her pocket. A phone this expensive couldn't be pulled out in public. She would have to keep it hidden.

Later that week when she went to get her money, she was surprised to find that her pay had doubled. That evening, she paid to get into a public swimming pool and took a real shower. She stood in the hot water for thirty minutes enjoying the feel of it rolling down her back.

She didn't swim because she didn't own a swimsuit, but she washed out her clothes and spun them in the little swimsuit spinner until they didn't drip. Then she hung them up to dry. She sat in the corner in the back of the woman's bathroom while she waited. There were towels, so she wrapped one around her body and another around her hair as she pulled out her phone. Sitting here like this, with the expensive phone, she looked like a college student stopping by for a swim before going on to classes or a beer party or whatever it was people of that class did.

Maddy pulled up Project Gutenberg and began to read The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson which had been her favorite story as a child. She felt, for a little while, safe. Safe and happy.


	6. Chapter 6

Christmas was coming, and although Christmas wasn't always a good thing for a person on the streets, people tended to be more generous.

Maddy used her money to buy two santa hats, and Abud and Maddy made a killing by singing Christmas carols outside the cathedral. Maddy was a much happier person now. She bought things which she shared with the other people at the shelter, and she recruited another girl named Angela to sing with them.

Angela was a real find. She had a voice just like her name. She had dirty blond hair, and an ugly scar on her cheek, but when she sang with them they made twice as much as when they sang alone.

Abud had been practicing _Silent Night_ on the guitar and they hoped to make some money singing in front of the shops, but Angela was nowhere to be seen. Abud went ahead to where they had planned to meet, and Maddy searched the streets for Angela.

It was already dark by the time she found her. She was sitting in the park on a bench beside a tree. Maddy sat beside her. She had been crying.

"Angela, what's wrong?" She asked.

Angela turned to her and hugged her. Crying tearlessly on her shoulder because she had no more water for tears.

"Angela, tell me what's wrong."

Angela bent her head over pulling at her blond hair. "They killed her." Angela said.

"Who? They killed who?"

"Marianne!" Angela said and with a sob.

"Start from the beginning and tell me everything." Maddy said.

Angela wiped her eyes and pushed her hair behind her ears. She touched her scarred cheek and then began. "I was stupid when I was younger." She said, " I met this man with a car. My friends told me he was bad news, but I wouldn't listen to them. I was in love. He told me to run away with him, and I did. I found myself here in a brothel with a dozen other of his _'girlfriends'_. When I said that I was going home he beat me and said that if I tried to escape, he would kill me. That's how I became a prostitute."

Maddy nodded. She hadn't known for sure, but she had suspected it.

"My best friend was a girl named Marianne. She had auburn hair and a beautiful figure. She was much too beautiful for the jerk who kept us. I told her that she should try to find another place, a place with higher class people but she scoffed at me. "This isn't a career ladder," she said.

I'm not that pretty, but I could turn a trick, cause blokes don't need pretty, they need available. Even so, I was planning my escape. One day, I started walking, and I didn't turn back until I was halfway out of the city. Somehow, he found me and took me back. He beat me. I told him that it was hell working for him. He said I could go to Hell and he cut me on the cheek and beat me until I was half dead. None of the other girls would help me. They were too afraid, and he said that they would get worse than he gave me if they did. I was bleeding bad and I passed out.

When I woke up, I was in a little room in back of a shop. Marianne had helped me. She had got help from a bloke who was sweet on her. She had talked him into letting me stay there until I got better. Everyone thought that I had died in the street. Marianne nursed me back to health. I dyed my hair. Stayed away from where he could find me, and he wasn't looking for me anyway because he thought I was dead. I had escaped.

"It's Christmas, so I decided to risk going back to see Marianne. I couldn't find her, but I found Jody crying in her place. She was surprised to see me, as you would imagine. She told me about Marianne. I told you that Marianne was too beautiful for that man. Well word came that someone big, and I mean BIG wanted a girl with these exact measurements. Marianne went to see him and they thought that she had graduated to mistress of a crime boss. Everyone was happy for her, but tonight they found her in an alley. Her face was beaten so bad that she couldn't be recognized but her body was untouched. Everyone was horrified, even the boss. He's out getting drunk."

"The police had come, and the body went off to the morgue. Just another unidentified body in a street of nameless poor. But why?" Angela asked, "What kind of sick person kills someone that way? Her head was completely destroyed, and they had dyed her auburn hair brown. The world is unfair, and there are no angels."

Maddy could hear the sound of a brass band in the distance playing. Angela would do no singing tonight. Maddy didn't know what to do, so she hugged Angela and let her cry on her shoulder. "There are angels." She said. "They can't save everyone though. All we can do is try our best to help them. I'm sorry about your friend."

When Angela felt well enough, they walked to a water fountain and Maddy made her drink. Then Maddy pulled out her phone. "What's your home phone number?" She said.

"That place where Marianne was?" Angela asked horrified.

"No." Maddy said. "What was your HOME phone number?"

"But I can't."

"Now!"

Angela typed the number in, and Maddy pushed send. Angela sat stock still as she listened to it ring. Once, twice, three times.

"Hello, April here."

"It's my sister." Angela said to Maddy.

"Angela...Angela, is that you?" The voice over the phone said excitedly.

"Hello April. Merry Christmas."

"Angela! Where are you? We've been looking everywhere. They said that you were dead."

"No, I'm alive. I'm in London, and I'm alive." Angela replied.

Maddy stood up and wrapped her coat around her more tightly. Maddy didn't have a home to go to except in memory. She touched her mother's necklace and thought of the forgotten Christmases of her childhood of tinsel trees and gingerbread men.

She heard a yelp and turned to see Angela clutching the phone to her chest. Angela ran over to her smiling. "They want me to come back! They'll take me back!" Angela said smiling. "Can you loan me coach fare? I promise I'll pay you back. I promise."

It took a lot of scrounging, but people are generous at Christmas and Maddy sent her off on the midnight coach out of London. She walked back to the shelter arriving early in the morning. Abud was there waiting for her.

She told him Angela's story and how she had sent her out of town and back to her home. He handed her a red box. She opened it and found a decorative silver comb for her hair.

"Thank you Abud." She said. "I don't know how long it's been since I had a real Christmas present." Maddy pulled down her hood and lifted her hair placing the comb in it.

"How does it look?" She asked.

"Beautiful." He said, and then he kissed her.


	7. Chapter 7

A life on the streets is full of ups and downs and little is certain. It's like floating across the ocean on a raft. You sit on top and hope the swells don't drown you. But sometimes, the weather is fair, and this was what it was like for Maddy that wonderful spring.

Abud was sweet. He came to meet her every morning. She greeted him with a gentle kiss. They had a host of places where they sang now. He had gotten better, and he bought her jewelry. Outlandish things like necklaces of ceramic peppers. They attracted attention and more people came to listen when Maddy tied her hair up with her silk scarf and sang. Angela had taken singing lessons, and she had taught Maddy a thing or two, but Maddy knew that it was love that made her voice soar.

The money they made now was always enough to eat on, and they ate lunch at a small cafe whose manager had once been homeless himself. He always gave them extra potatoes and they sang sometimes in the evenings in front of his place to attract customers there.

Some nights they sat in the park and cuddled. Some nights they huddled in the abandoned gardening shed where Abud slept and made love. Abud and his brother had come years ago to make their fortune in England. The job that they had been promised had fallen through and they would have been forced to return penniless if they could not get another job. They didn't find one, and two months later his brother had died of a fever.

Sitting in the hospital lobby, head in his hands, he heard the immigration officers talking to the nurse at the lobby. They were going to deport him, so he stood up and walked out of the hospital leaving strangers to bury his brother rather than be caught. He never got over that. He shed tears into Maddy's breast shattered that he had not done what was proper for his brother.

"He'll forgive you." Maddy said stroking his hair with her hand, "He wanted you to succeed, and you will."

"The only lucky thing that's happened to me since I got here Maddy, is you." He said, and she kissed him.

Suddenly, _Love me true_ started playing in her coat pocket. She reached over and pulled out the phone.

"You never told me." He asked, "Where did you get that phone?"

"Someone gave it to me, when I was begging." She said.

"And did this someone give you a phone plan, because phones don't work if you don't continue to pay for them."

"It just works. I thought you agreed to let me have some secrets." She said sitting up and pulling on her shirt. Maddy looked at the message.

**[Banker kidnapped. Report all suspicious activity to me.]**

Maddy cleared the message as Abud pulled her to his chest.

"No, you aren't going just yet."

"I'm not?"

"No, I have something to talk to you about."

"What's that?"

"I want you to come away with me." he said.

"Where, to Wembley stadium again? Like when we saw the fireworks?"

"No, to Brighton."

"Brighton? Are we going on vacation at the sea?"

"No, there's a man, works at the train station. He said that in the summer they have these carts where people sell food for the tourists."

"So?" Maddy said.

"So, I can buy a share in a cart. They provide the things to sell at cost. We sell them at a higher price, and we keep the profit. If I manage, and you sell, I'm sure we can get by. And the beach is warm in the summer. We can sleep by the cart. If we own a business, we can make a living, use the money to buy a place that is open year round. Maybe even..."

"Maybe even what?"

"Maybe even buy a house, or rent or something. Maybe you and I could, I don't know, get married."

"Abud, are you asking me to marry you?"

"Maybe. If I was, what would you say?"

"I don't know. It doesn't seem like marriage makes any sense for people like you and me. Things are so uncertain. I can't imagine having children while living on the streets."

"It could happen anyway." He said, " I worry about it sometimes. What if you do get pregnant. What would I do then. We need to get a home. We need to make a life if we want to stay together. If my plan comes through. If I get the booth in Brighton, will you come with me whether marriage is in the plan or not. Will you come?"

Maddy looked down at the phone. The man in the coat had caused big changes in her life, but he wanted her because she was homeless and lived in London. If she moved, he'd probably ask for the phone back. Go find some other girl on the street. But to have a home and a business, and a husband. It was too much to hope for. She would certainly take that and chuck the phone.

"Yes, I'll come with you. And if it all works out, yes, I'll marry you." Maddy said.

Abud grabbed her and pulled her down to the floor of the shed. That morning after a dozen extra kisses. They dressed. Morning was coming and someone might see them if they didn't leave soon.

"I'll try to make some money too. If we pool resources, it may happen. How much money do you need to raise?"

"Ten thousand pounds." Abud said.

Maddy froze. "Ten...thousand...pounds? How can you possibly make that much money? Five hundred, maybe, but ten thousand!" Maddy saw her dreams of marriage burst like a soap bubble. "Abud, it isn't possible."

"Yes it is." he said, "there are people. They've approached me. They pay very well."

"What people?" Maddy asked, "You can't just take every job people offer you. Some of those people are ones you don't want to be associated with, if you know what I mean."

"Don't worry, " He said, "I've done some things before, and I know how to take care of myself. If I do a few more jobs for them, I can start making more money and we can buy that share."

"But..."

"Maddy, I know what I'm doing." Abud said, "trust me. By this time next year we will have our own home and be married and living in Brighton."

Abud kissed Maddy's frowning face and then climbed over a low wall and away. Maddy sat against the wall with her arms crossed.

_"Don't trust things that are too good to be true."_ she said to herself. She knew that. Whatever he was planning it wasn't going to work. But then again, the man with the coat had worked, so ... She suddenly remembered that she had a job to do. She headed toward the docks and warehouses to begin her searching.

Sherlock Holmes rescued the man. It wasn't her lead that did it, but they found him in an abandoned office building. Another one of the network had called in the tip. Maddy noticed Sherlock in the paper more and more. He and the blond short one were everywhere. She read the news voraciously, but no one ever mentioned the homeless network. There was never any mention more pointed than the phrase "an anonymous tip".

Abud was gone a lot now. He had got himself in with some not very nice people on his quest for Brighton money. Maddy told him to forget it and get out while he could, but he told her not to worry. "Can't you see that I'm doing this for us?" He said.

She frowned more and more. She went on long walks around the city. She had gotten over her fear of trains, so she took trains randomly, getting off and wandering through the back streets until she knew what almost everyplace looked like. Sherlock Holmes had asked her to start taking photos with her phone. He was building up a visual database of the city as he called it. She'd walk and take pictures of the river. Of windows. Of flowers. Anything really. He never complained. He seemed to be happy with everything that she sent him.

One morning Abud came to her excited. He had a job that was going to pay lots of money. He had been given an advance of two thousand pounds. He gave the money to her to hold.

"What do you have to do?" Maddy asked.

"I can't talk about it." Abud said.

"It's me." Maddy insisted.

"Okay, but you must promise not to say a word. I dress up in a coat and wear a mask with some guy's face on it. We are going to take something from some school and hide it ."

"What are you taking?"

"I said too much already. They're giving me five thousand for this. We already saved three thousand. After this job, we'll have enough to buy the stake. I'll bring the money to you tomorrow evening. It will all work out. You'll see."

Maddy forced a smile, and Abud kissed her. She could tell that he wasn't really going to leave. He was on the way up. He was successful. He would keep at it saying that they needed more and more money , until he got too greedy and they tossed him out. If he was lucky, they'd just beat him up. If he was unlucky... she didn't want to think about what might happen then.

Maddy took the money and wrapped in in her silk scarf. She fastened it together with a citrine bracelet that Abud had bought for her and showed it to Catherine.

"Catherine." She said, "Abud bought me this jewelry and I'm afraid that it will get stolen. Is it alright if I put it in the safe?"

Catherine looked at the bundle and then back at Maddy. "Sure, that's not a problem, but Maddy, are you alright? You look upset."

"No, I'm fine." She said. "Can we do it now?"

That day she walked aimlessly about as she waited for Abud. She found herself wandering among the brick warehouses in Addlestone. It was pleasant to walk among the tall pine trees.

She snapped some photos of purple flowers that she saw growing up through the cracked asphalt. Abud and she were like the flowers. Trying to grow and flourish in the dark cracks of the city, but there was no room to expand here, no room to grow.

Maddy felt a sense of dread. Abud was in with the wrong people. She never noticed these things until it was too late, but when she saw him next, she would take the five thousand that they had saved and leave London before anything bad happened. She would convince him any way that she could that they needed to go. She still remembered Marianne.

An urgent text came on her phone.

**[Chalk, Asphalt, Brick Dust, Vegetation, Chocolate]**

The flowers were vegetation. She sent the photo to Sherlock hoping only to brighten his day. She was surprised when he texted back.

**[Good. Stay there]**

Maddy sat on an old brick structure that had once housed a logo or a bell or a sign. She couldn't tell because whatever had been there had been removed long ago. She listened to the traffic passing on the distant street. Then she heard a siren, and was surprised to watch them pass right by her.

**[Found them.]**

The message said, and she took that to mean that she could leave. She walked toward the river. She still had an aversion to police. She weaved among the factories and alleys hoping to stay out of everyone's way. She was in Surrey because Abud had told her to meet him at Addlestone chapel.

While walking past a warehouse, she heard what sounded like a gunshot. She hid behind some crates afraid to move. Then she saw a black car drive away. For a long time, she stayed where she was, then curiosity overcame her, and she walked toward the warehouse. The door was not only unlocked, it hadn't been properly closed. She walked through the door cautiously. The sunlight was streaming through the high windows, but other than some odd pieces of heavy equipment rusting in the corner, it was empty. She saw something that looked like a folded bag in the distance. She walked toward it.

As she approached she realized that it was a body. She rushed to it. It was a man. He had been shot. She touched his neck and pulled her hand away. He was dead. She pulled out her phone and dialed 999.

"Hello." She said, "I'm in Addlestone in a warehouse and I've just found a dead body."

"Stay calm." The operator said, "Now, I want you to check for a pulse."

"I already have." She said. "He's dead."

"Can you give us your address?" They asked.

"I don't know the address. It's near the chapel. Not far from the Tesco. I don't know. Should I go out and check?"

"No, stay where you are. We are coming. Are you alone, is there anyone else there with you?"

"I'm alone." Maddy said as she looked up and saw a pair of shoes, "Wait, I see someone else. I think that there is another body."

Maddy walked around a large wooden spool used for holding cable. She saw the legs, and then the feet, and then the head, and then the face. She froze.

"Did you say that someone else was there? Miss... Miss..."

It was Abud. He was lying on his side. There was a hole in his left temple and his dark brown eyes were staring at nothing. Maddy dropped the phone.

The operator kept calling for her, but she couldn't hear her any more. She couldn't even hear the sound of the sirens in the distance approaching her location.

All she saw was his dead face and all of their dead dreams.


	8. Chapter 8

Maddy was in a daze. She sat at the police station unable to answer the questions that they asked her. All she would say was that his name was Abud, she knew him, and he was dead.

A doctor shone a light into her eyes and said that she was in shock. They gave her tea and a blanket and had her sit in a quiet corner. In the end they had to let her go. A policeman touched her arm. She looked up.

"Miss, would you like me to drive you someplace?"

His eyes were brown, but not as dark as Abud's .

"Would you like me to drive you home?"

Maddy's frown took over her entire face. "I have no home," she said and walked through the doors and out of the station. She didn't know where she was or where she was going. She got on a train and rode, and rode till the trains stopped and she had to get off. She found herself in Stratford.

Sitting on a bench on some street, somewhere, she heard the phone beep. It took her two entire minutes to work up the heart to pull it out of her pocket. She unlocked it and read the message. It said.

**[Initiate Network Termination Protocols.]**

Termination of the network? He had told her about this. In an emergency, they would dissolve the homeless network, get rid of the phones and pretend that they had never seen the man in the coat. It was for their own protection if things became too hot.

It seemed appropriate somehow now that her life with Abud was gone that her other life was also ending. The man with the coat had made her believe that a good life was possible for her. Now he was leaving her just like Abud had. Everything was ending, and Maddy was much too sad to cry.

Maddy began to delete each message, and each phone call. This was part of the protocol. Protect yourself. Protect your friends. She looked at the number before her. It was Angela's home number. Angela had not told her what had happened when she arrived home. Maddy could call her, but if she did, Angela might ask about Abud. She deleted the number and went on. Before she was finished, another message arrived.

**[Special instructions follow for CAKEWALK, BIKER, AND YELLOWSUBMARINE]**

It said. She was sure Yellow Submarine meant her. She waited.

**[Type in codeword GOODBYE]**

She found the part of the phone that asked for a code, and she entered it. The screen filled with text.

**_1\. Do not throw this phone away. I will use it to contact you._ **

**_2\. Exactly forty eight hours from the time of this message meet me on Waterloo bridge._ **

**_3\. Delete all personalization from this phone in case it must be discarded. Remove all messages, and all numbers._ **

**_4\. Go to the Post office at 181 High Hoborn and ask for the message addressed to Madeline St. Martin in box 226._ **

She read the last entry twice. Madeline St. Martin. That was her real name. How had he known? Her identification card, which was fake, listed her name as Maddy Pond, a surname that she had heard on a television show. She put away the phone and stood up. She should wait the five hours for the trains to start up again, but she could not. She had to do something. She had to move. She put her hands in her pockets and began to walk back to London proper.

She walked and walked until she was tired. Then she sat down and rested, then she walked some more. She stood still on the sidewalk watching the sun rise. It was red as Abud's blood. Suddenly, she realized that she needed to find where his body was. She made her way back to the police station.

"His burial, I must see to his burial." She said.

"That body is on the list to be autopsied" The woman replied, "They've taken it to St. Bartholomew's hospital."

"But can I leave instructions for his burial?" Maddy asked.

"I'm sorry Mrs. Mohammed." she said, "we don't have any control of the body now, you'll have to go there."

Maddy left, but now she had a mission. One brother had been left behind without a proper burial, the second would not be. The morning was overcast when she had entered the station, now it had cleared. The blue sky seemed wrong on a day of such sadness, so she was happy to find as she exited the tube that a light rain had started.

When she got to the hospital, she noticed knots of people standing in the lobby, talking excitedly. Maddy pushed her way through to the counter.

"I'm here about a body." She said, "It's listed to have an autopsy done."

"Oh?" She said, "You're here to take custody?" The woman behind the counter asked. "Let me call down to the morgue. Please have a seat."

She sat in the lobby with her head leaning against the wall. She only opened her eyes when she heard the name "Sherlock Holmes."

"I'm sorry sir, there is no one by that name listed as a patient in this hospital."

"He isn't a patient." the man said, "He's a ...he'd be in the morgue. Just get me Molly Hooper. Get her on the line now."

Maddy looked up and saw the short man with the blond hair. He looked as horrible as she felt. She couldn't understand why the man was here. Only that in the entire room, he was the only person who felt real to her. His eyes were haunted with loss. He understood what it felt like to have the world yanked from under him. To suddenly be displaced into a universe where nothing made sense anymore.

"I'm sorry, Mrs Hooper can't come to the line right now, apparently they've found another body on the roof and the morgue is off limits until all the autopsies have been scheduled. I'm sorry Dr. Watson. If you will give us your number, we can call..."

The man turned and rushed out into the rain. She stared after him almost missing that they had called her name.

"Madam" The woman at the counter said, "There is a backlog in the morgue and your husband won't be autopsied today, but if you leave me your number, we can call you."

"I'll come back then." She said and walked out.

London seemed a greyer city now. A city of despair. She stood in the chill rain letting it wash her thoughts away as it had washed away her hopes.

_"It's good to cry in the rain."_ Maddy thought, _"You can walk through the crowds with tears streaming down your face and people don't even notice."_ Eventually, however, the cold got to her, so she walked into a cafe. The change in pressure as she walked through the door made her hearing go momentarily dull. She bought a cup of tea, warming her hands with the cup and she tried to think of nothing. Thoughts came anyway. The rain made her think of water, which made her think of the sea at Brighton. The sea of Abud's dreams. Silently, she cried.

She came to the post office in the afternoon. She asked for the package listed in her name and was handed a box wrapped in brown paper. She found a quiet corner and opened it. It held an envelope full of money. If she had had it earlier, Abud might still be alive.

Maddy was beginning to hate money, and yet she had loads of it. Sherlock Holmes' money, Abud's money, more money than she had ever dreamed of having. What good was money now that she had no more dreams? What is the point of money if you can't spend it on people that you love?

The irony of it all hurt her. It hurt so much that she bent over clutching at her chest. Her heart was broken. As she held the box to her, she heard a rattle and she realized that it wasn't empty. She reached inside and found a book. The book was small with a blue cover inlaid with silver curlicues. It was The Snow Queen. How had he known?

Maddy added Sherlock Holmes' money to the money that she had in the safe. She lay in the back room of the shelter avoiding contact, avoiding Catherine's sympathy and waiting. She opened her book and began to read.

_"When we get to the end of the story, you will know more than you do now about a very wicked hobgoblin. He was one of the worst kind; in fact he was a real demon. One day he was in a high state of delight because he had invented a mirror with this peculiarity, that every good and pretty thing reflected in it shrank away to almost nothing. On the other hand, every bad and good-for-nothing thing stood out and looked its worst."_

Yes, everything that used to be good looked bad now. She closed the book and although she didn't think it possible, exhaustion finally caught up with her, and she slept.

The next morning she walked to the city. As Maddy sat on a bench, she noticed a newspaper on the seat. She lifted it and read **Suicide of Fake Genius -** Fradulent detective takes his own life.

" _Sherlock Holmes is dead?"_ She thought. _"I don't believe it. He's meeting me tonight."_

Of course, a meeting with a homeless person wouldn't be enough to stop a someone bent on suicide, but even so, she could no more imagine the man in the coat committing suicide than she could imagine Santa Claus doing it. That message that he had sent. It had been a warning. Someone had been after him. There was danger. It didn't feel to her like despair.

Maddy picked up the paper and read the article. He had jumped from a building yesterday. If that was all true, was their any point in going on with the plan? Dead men can't make meetings. She should go back to the shelter. She continued to read, but the more she read, the angrier she got.

The story said that all of the cases that Sherlock had solved were fake. That was a lie! She had helped solve some of them. She had been the one to find the kidnapped boy, chained in a warehouse near the wharf. She had been the one to find the beagles that had led to the prosecution of the granny extortionist. She tore the paper up and threw it away.

She should have known better than to trust the paper. She knew more than anyone how they only told stories that the people in power wanted you to hear. They never talked about things like Abud's murder, or of the rich crime lords who asked for call girls and then beat them to death leaving their bodies in back alleys. People didn't want to hear stories of people living on the streets. They didn't want to think about them. Pretended that they didn't see them. Maddy looked up at the people passing her by. Looking at her dirty clothes and tattered fingerless gloves and judging her worthless. The world was full of killers and liars. She threw herself down on the bench and tried hard not to hate the world.

At midnight, she sat on a bench on Waterloo bridge. She didn't know what she was expecting to find. Perhaps a ghost, perhaps nothing, but she would follow her last instruction. She needed to do it to have closure before starting her life anew. She looked down at the water. The water that washed down to the sea. The sea that washed into the ocean. The ocean beside Brighton.

She heard footsteps and turned, a man was approaching, but it wasn't the man in the coat. He wore a short green jacket and a ski hat. She turned away looking down at the waves again. The man walked up to her and she looked up into his face. It was Sherlock Holmes.


	9. Chapter 9

Sherlock Holmes looked into her face and then turned away. Maddy jumped as if she had seen a ghost, then she followed him. He crossed the bridge and walked down the street. She followed several paces behind. She thought that he would stop soon but he didn't stop at the first corner or the second. He weaved between the buildings turning into one alley and then another. She followed him as best she could trying not to run despite the fact that his long legs allowed him to go so much faster than her.

As she turned the corner, Maddy saw him turn off sharply and pass through a door. She hesitated for a moment, and then rushed through. She saw him standing behind the door a finger to his mouth. They waited in silence for five minutes or so, and then he motioned for her to follow him.

They entered a stairwell and walked up to the top. He opened a door and entered a cleaning closet, then he pulled down a ladder and climbed up through a vent into the ceiling. The place held air conditioners and ventilation fans for the building. There was a constant whirring sound. Sherlock Holmes covered the opening to the closet below, and led her to the wall where the louvered vent allowed a view of the city lights. There was a bed roll and a pile of clothes there. The man sat down and motioned to her to sit beside him.

It was a strange thing sharing a bed with Sherlock Holmes. They sat for a while in silence simply looking out at the city as the equipment groaned on behind them. Then he spoke,

"You could have done that better," He said.

"Done what?" Maddy asked.

"Following me. You were easy to see. If it wasn't for the fact that people are predisposed to ignore you then everyone would have noticed that you were following me."

"I wanted you to notice." Maddy said, "I came to meet you. Anyway, aren't you supposed to be dead?"

"I am dead." He said, "and I plan to stay that way, at least until my business is done."

He stopped talking then and silence fell. Maddy didn't want to know what his business was. Perhaps it was vengence. To get back at those who threatened him. Perhaps it was something else. The only thing that Maddy had left to do was bury Abud. She didn't know what to do after that.

"Maddy, I need your help," he said.

Maddy sat in silence. He stared into her eyes, but she would not keep his gaze. Sherlock held up his phone and showed her a picture of the man with the blond hair. He was sitting at a table wearing a blue striped jumper. "Do you know this man?" He asked.

"Yes." Maddy said, "I've seen him with you more than once."

"And he has seen you, that makes things a bit difficult, but not impossibly as John's memory is incredibly bad. Of course, you are female, and he does have a special talent for remembering anything that is female, but it can't be helped. I want you to follow him."

"Follow him where? When? For how long?"Maddy asked.

"Starting today, for as long as you can."

"Why me?" Maddy asked, "The network is dissolved. We've all gone our separate ways, why do you want me to still work for you? You could have picked anyone."

"I picked you, because I trust you Maddy. I trust you with my most important mission."

"What mission?" She asked.

"To watch over John." He replied, his voice cracking at the sound of his friends name.

Maddy did look into his eyes then and saw something that she had never noticed before. She saw that he was human. He was not Santa or a ghost or anything else mystical, he was a man alone sharing a bunk with her and asking for help.

"I can't do this." replied Maddy, "I live somewhere else. I'd look suspicious. I can't be around him all of the time. Also, he might take a taxi and I couldn't follow him."

"If you can't follow all of the time, that's fine, " he said, "but I need to know that someone is watching his back. I need to know that I can contact you to find out how he is doing. I need to know if he is alright."

Maddy looked at the man's face. She had thought it expressionless, but now she could see the concern in the firmness of his lips, and the furrowing in his brow. She reached out her hand to him, and then pulled it back before she touched him. "I'll help." She said, "I know what it's like to be worried about the safety of someone that you care about."

"I know." He said, "I could tell."

Maddy looked at him suspiciously, "How do you know that? What do you know about me?" She asked.

"I only know what I observe, " he said.

"What do you mean, observe?"

"It's obvious." He began, "Your whole life is here. First, the fact that you are homeless at all at your age shows that either you have no living parents, or that your parents are people that you could not bear to live with. The necklaces that you wear. Obviously momentos of your past. That one, I would guess, is from your mother by it's style. You touch it unconsciously which means that you think of her often. She was someone that you cared about. Someone who is gone. The other necklace is fanciful. Peppers. Obviously a gift, but your sorrow when I say that suggests that the one who gave you that is also dead.

Your clothes when I first met you were baggy and dull. You didn't want to be seen as a girl. You didn't want people to think of you in a sexual way. Now, things are different. You found someone who you wanted to see you as a woman. "

"How did you know this?"

"I told you, Maddy, I observe."

"But you still haven't told me why you picked me. Not that first time. That was just random, I mean in the square, you sought me out, you had a phone already prepared for me. What made you want me out of all of the homeless people in the city?"

"That first day outside my flat, you were hungry." He said, " your stomach growled. I could tell that you had lost the money that I gave you, because you were hungry. If you had the money you would have bought something to eat. How could I tell that you were trustworthy and dependable? Because I paid you first, and you lost all the money, but you came anyway and gave me one of the best and most thorough leads that I'd gotten in months. That and the poem."

"The poem?"

"Yes," He said excitedly, "It was the most important part. You use mnemonic devices to remember things. That means that expanding your mind is important to you. That means that knowledge, discovery, and problem solving are things that interest you, and if they do, you more than others can understand my desire to solve cases. All of these things make me trust you and that is why I am giving you of all my irregulars the most important charge of all. To watch my friend. So Maddy tell me, will you do it?"

Maddy looked up into his eyes. Human eyes. Concerned eyes. She touched her necklace. "Yes, whatever you need. I'll help."

He gave a sad smile and said, "Thank you Maddy. Thank you."


	10. Chapter 10

Not being a master of disguise, Maddy decided to go for the obvious approach. She picked a spot close enough to 221B to watch John enter and exit, but far enough away to not be obvious and she sat down to beg, asking passers by for loose change. People are quick to ignore you if you are asking them for money.

She had picked the direction that John usually walked when he left toward the station. Near the corner as she was, she could follow his movements all the way down the other street without moving.

Every evening she would send a text to a certain number that Sherlock provided. Sherlock would never reply. She would add a code word to her text to show that it was from her. They had decided that the last word in each text would start with a letter from the chorus of Yellow Submarine.

"I would include the verse too." Sherlock had said, "but it is obvious that you do not know it."

Day 1

**[Stayed at home all day, windy]**

Day 2

**[Went out for food, walking very slowly, everywhere]**

Day 3

**[Stayed in all day. One visitor. Landlady turned her away]**

Day 4

**[The funeral Left in black car looked lonely]**

Day 5

**[Left early came back drunk late]**

Maddy had finally been given custody of Abud's body. At first they refused because she could not prove that she was his wife, but as no one else claimed him they finally relented.

He had a traditional _Sunni_ ceremony at the graveside. She brought some people from the shelter using her money to pay for their transportation. Catherine was also there, and she helped Maddy serve a small meal afterwards that they shared with anyone who asked.

The people in the funeral home were very nice. Death is one place where there is no rank. Most of her money went to pay for his burial. The rest went to the director for the transport and re-internment of Abud's brother. She had found his cremated remains and she arranged to have them buried over Abud's grave. He would rest easier for that.

After the funeral, she went back to Baker street. She wore the black scarf that Sherlock had given her over her face as a mourning shawl. Walking slowly past 221B in the nighttime, she looked up at Sherlock's apartment. The lights were out, but she saw a face in the window, John's face looking out as if he was waiting for Sherlock to come home. John saw her looking at him, so she kept walking. Perhaps he would see her as a projection of his own soul, a figment of his imagination which saw the morbid in all things now. She pulled out the phone and texted Sherlock.

Day 6

**[Busy with my own funeral Came late. Face in window no Light]**

The next day the street was fairly quiet. Maddy pulled out her book and continued to read.

_"Nobody knew where he was, and many tears were shed; little Gerda cried long and bitterly. At last, people said he was dead; he must have fallen into the river which ran close by the town. Oh, what long, dark, winter days those were!_

_At last the spring came and the sunshine._

_'Kay is dead and gone,' said little Gerda._

_'I don't believe it,' said the sunshine._

_'He is dead and gone,' she said to the swallows._

_'We don't believe it,' said the swallows; and at last little Gerda did not believe it either."_

Maddy was surprised to see a large black car pull up to the door. A man got out. She recognized him as the man she had seen before. The man with the chain in his waistcoat. He rang the bell and a woman let him in. The car, as before, drove around the corner to wait. He wasn't there long. About half an hour, then he came out and stood on the steps, a phone to his ear. He scanned the street and for a second he stared straight at Maddy before turning his eyes away at the approach of his car. He got inside, and then the car drove by the corner slowly and ominously. The darkened windows reflecting her own image back to her as she tried to look inside.

That evening after dark, Maddy was preparing to go back to the shelter when a black car came up to her. The window rolled down, and a richly dressed woman with dark hair beaconed to her. "Come here," she said.

Maddy looked at the car and she did not like it one bit. She shook her head and smiled, pretending that she did not understand. The door opened.

Maddy started to walk. The car door closed and the car followed her. She ran turning down a side street. The car followed. She ran across a busy street almost getting hit, and down another alley. When she got to the end of the alley, the car pulled in front of her. She turned to find a large man standing behind her. She was terrified, but she knew better than to show fear. He reached out for her, but she pulled her arm away, getting into the car of her own will.

The man slid into the seat next to her. The woman sat on the other side.

"Hello," she said.

Maddy remembered the woman on the phone. The one who wanted to meet with Sherlock. "Are you Irene?" she asked her.

"I am if you want me to be," she said and then began texting on her phone. The car drove up to a fancy house and drove past a metal gate into a private garage. The man ushered her out of the car and another man searched her. She knew better than to put up a fight, but she did jump when they took her phone. They looked at her with malice, and she became still trying her best to look harmless and unobtrusive.

They walked her through the hall of the house. It was clean and fancy. It looked like a show house. It didn't seem possible that anyone lived in a place like this, with white carpets and mirrors on the walls.

She was shown into a richly furnished room. The man in the waistcoat sat in a leather chair before a tea tray. They sat her down in a chair across from him but much too far away to reach either him or the tray.

They gave her phone to the man who turned it over in his hands and played with the keys for a moment before putting it down beside his tea cup.

"Well, well Maddy Mohammed is it? Or would you rather go by Madeline St. Martin?"

Maddy said nothing. The rich man poured himself a cup of tea and placed it to his lips. He didn't offer her any.

"You've been watching John Watson. You've virtually camped outside his flat, and you were there before. Quite an interesting hobby you have. What are you hoping to find there? Or is it simply a job that you are doing for your employer? Can you speak?"

"Yes I can speak," Maddy said, "and I don't have an employer. That's why I'm on the streets."

The rich man gave her a vicious smile. "We know that's not quite true is it. First of all, you've been working at the shelter part-time, but recently you buried your 'husband'. Paid for the burial and the funeral yourself. Quite a feat for an unemployed widow with no income, so tell me where is your employer now?"

"I told you, I don't have one," Maddy said.

"Don't lie to me," the man snapped. "Those notes were traceable. We could have you in jail for conspiracy of kidnapping and murder."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean your 'husband's' employers. Why are you loyal to them? You must know that they are the ones who killed Abud Mohammed."

"What do you mean? Who killed him?"

"Your employer did."

"You mean that Abud was shot by...that's not possible."

"So you do have an employer. Where is he?"

Maddy put her hand to her head. Could Sherlock Holmes have shot Abud? it didn't seem possible. He had texted her not an hour before. She saw him pass in the police car. This man was mistaken.

"No, he wasn't there," she said. "He didn't shoot Abud."

The rich man in the suit smiled like a viper. "He didn't do it personally. He has other people who do that kind of work for him."

Maddy looked into the face of the rich man. The man who was trying to tell her that Sherlock Holmes was a killer. The man who tried to tell her that he had killed her husband. It was the newspaper all over again. The people in power, and this man was obviously one of them, wanted her to obey. They were liars. He was a liar. She had seen killers before, and she knew that Sherlock Holmes was not one of them. This man wanted her to betray him. It would not happen.

The man seemed to be reading the expression on her face. He sat back in his chair and steepled his hands looking more like a murderer in that moment than anyone she had ever seen. "So it is loyalty. I am honestly surprised. I never thought of James Moriarty as the kind of person to instill loyalty in someone like you."

"Who?" Maddy asked.

"Your employer, James Moriarty," he said. "Certainly you must know by now that your idol is dead."

Suddenly Maddy realized that this man thought that she was a spy for someone else. She had been mistaken for someone that she was not, a pawn in a game of gang bosses. She knew what happened to pawns in games like this. She wasn't going to get out of here alive, was she?

Maddy glanced at the phone. What would Sherlock think when he didn't get anymore messages? He would probably know exactly what happened. She couldn't help him protect John anymore. She couldn't help herself. At least Abud had been laid to rest properly.

The man stared at her silently, his eyes darting back and forth. Then he picked up her phone. He pressed the keys in a complex pattern and the screen opened.

"How did you do that?" Maddy said

"Please..." he said as if she had insulted him. "All of these phones have developer keys that allow the makers to get in if they need to. It is a simple thing to learn them for the different models of phone." He looked through the messages, and then glanced up at her.

"A communication, but with whom? The last word is obviously a identification code. What code has three L's in a row. Is it mathematical?" He punched a few more codes on the screen, and then he sat very still. His eyes looked up at Maddy, the expression changing to one of wonder. He stood, the phone clasped in one hand.

"Where is he?" the man said.

"I thought you said that he was dead," Maddy said her mouth in a hard line.

"I thought that he was," he gasped. "Tell me, where is Sherlock? It's him you work for not Moriarty. Where is he? When did you last see him?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Please," he said. "This is too important. I punched in a code on a whim. Only Sherlock could have put this message in this phone. Where is he?"

Maddy stood and the man who had been waiting patiently beside the door walked closer ready to restrain her. She glared at him in anger.

"You people," she said, "I'm sick to death of you. You think that because you have money that you own people like me, but you don't. You make the world uneven and you like it that way. You like being on top and telling other people what to do. You walk over other people's lives, over people's dreams. We aren't even real people to you, are we? What does it matter to you that my lover was shot in a warehouse last week for dreaming of running a business in Brighton, for dreaming of a life for our children? Children that will never be born because some other rich man, someone like you, decided that the loose ends needed to be swept clean.

"You people of prestige and power, living in your castles of glass and furniture, thinking yourself so high above us who live on the streets. You have no compassion, none of you. It's been choked out of you by your privilege and your public school educations. You're taught to be glad of what you have and work to make sure no one else gets any of it. Well I don't want it. I don't want to be like you!

"When I came in to this room, I was less to you than a dog. No, I was a kitten in a bag that you planned to drown for your sport. Now that you want something you change your words, but nothing of you has changed inside. You will never change.

"So kill me if you want to. Kill me like they killed Marianne beating her face until her own mother couldn't recognize her. Kill me like they killed Abud, and that other man who I never knew. I'm sure that he had dreams too. But don't worry, even if you don't do anything to me, all you really have to do if you want to kill me is wait. Wait until the next cold spell makes my toes freeze off. Wait until I die of hunger because the funding was cut to the shelter for the third time. Wait until I get old and sick and no one bothers to check to see if I need water or even if I'm still breathing. It shouldn't bother you. You have this house. You have your cars and your fine women in furs to take care of you. But I still believe in _Karma_ , and I know that this evil will return to you. It will return to you tenfold!"

Maddy was breathing hard now, her voice cracked on the last note, and she felt like she was about to cry. The man stared at her open mouthed, the phone clutched in his hand. He bowed his head folding his hands together under his chin. Then he looked up apologetically.

"I'm sorry Miss St. Martin for inconveniencing you," he said, "My associates will take you wherever you wish to go."

Maddy's anger was bleeding out of her by the minute. The man clutched the phone to his chest as if it held his life's hope. She knew better than to ask for it back.

They escorted her to the car in silence. Since they already knew about the shelter, she had them take her there. There would be no more watching John. Her cover was blown.

_"I'm sorry Sherlock,"_ she said to herself as she stepped out of the car and walked down the river road toward her bed.


	11. Chapter 11

The next morning after Maddy had eaten breakfast, Catherine came over holding her brown box and her citrine bracelet. "I'm sorry to do this Maddy," she said, "but I'm going to have to let you go."

"What?" Maddy said.

"Yesterday, some government officials came asking about you. You've been mixed up with something. All that money in unmarked packages. We can't risk being closed down because of illegal activity."

"But I'm not doing anything illegal." Maddy cried.

"I know," Catherine said calmly, " And it breaks my heart to do this, but you are a much more capable person now than you were when you came here. When you go, I'll be able to help someone who needs it more than you. We don't have many resources here, and you've been here for a long time. Do you understand?"

Maddy took her bundle in her hands. "Yes, I understand." she said, "Goodbye Catherine."

"Goodbye Maddy. Good luck." Catherine waved and went back to the kitchen.

Maddy walked down the road beside the river truly homeless again. She sat on the pier and opened her box. She was down to twenty pounds. She shoved it in her pocket, and threw the box in a trash bin. She looked at the Citrine bracelet that Abud had bought her. She could pawn it and make a few bucks. She shoved it on to her wrist instead, the tears coming down of their own accord.

There had been a contingency plan if her phone was lost or stolen. She was to sit at a particular place outside of St. Bartholomew's Hospital between the hours of 12 and 1 on three successive Tuesdays. If she did, BICYCLE would be able to recognize her and get her a new phone.

When Sherlock had dissolved his homeless network, he had kept in contact with only three of them. Maddy had watched John and Mrs Hudson, BICYCLE watched Molly Hooper, and CAKEWALK watched DI Lestrade. Since none of them knew one other, they couldn't betray each other. Making herself recognizable was a risk, but it was all that she could think of to do.

She sat in the spot one Tuesday, moving to other places in town during the rest of the week. The second Tuesday, she came and sat again, looking at the passing people and wondering if she could recognize BICYCLE as someone that she had seen before.

Many people passed in front of Bart's hospital at lunchtime. It was dizzying watching them all, but the corner that she sat at was a bit removed from the major traffic areas, and therefore a bit less busy. As she sat, she noticed a man standing on the corner staring up at the roof. She looked up, but didn't see anything. She looked back and recognized that it was John. He was looking steadily at the roof. This must be where Sherlock had jumped. He had not told her how he escaped dying that day. She had never asked, but the news said that John had been a witness to it.

He stood staring, shielding his eyes from the glare as he relived that time. A look of pain crossed his face and his hand dropped to cover his mouth. He looked so out of place among the busy crowds, as if he were in slow motion. She could see loss written on his brows. He didn't know that Sherlock was alive, and Sherlock couldn't tell him. Not if he wanted to keep him safe.

That night when they had sat watching the city in that rooftop room. Sherlock had admitted to her how frustrated he was that he had to keep himself hidden. _"Powerful forces are moving"_ he had said, _"and I won't risk him. I won't risk any of them until I know who is out there, and how I'm going to deal with them."_

John finally turned to go, and Maddy stood to follow him. She rushed across the street trying to catch up barely avoiding being hit by a bus. As the bus pulled up, she turned, and out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a black car with mirrored windows waiting. She stopped following John, and got onto the bus instead.

Luckily she had enough money for bus fare. She could see that the black car had been watching her. She would not be coming back here next Tuesday, or ever again. She didn't want to blow BICYCLE's cover. Sherlock was simply out of reach.

Maddy walked the streets at night, catching naps in the daytime when it was warmer and safer. She found herself returning to the places where good things had happened to her. To Trafalgar square where she and Abud had sung _yellow submarine_ to a group of stunned Londoners. To the swimming pool where she had taken her first warm shower in months, and read The Snow Queen on her new phone. To the garden shed where Abud had proposed to her before he left to take that job that had led to his death, and to Waterloo bridge where Sherlock Holmes had first given her fifty pounds and a slip of paper asking her to find Slippery Joe's sausages, white rain boots, and beagle dogs.

Maddy sat on the bench one evening lost in thought when she heard footsteps approaching. A man walked over to the edge of the bridge and leaned against the railing looking down at the water flowing below the bridge.

Maddy sat up. She knew him. It was John Watson. He looked sad. Very sad. There were bags under his eyes, and his clothes were rumpled as if he had slept in them. He looked up at the starry sky and then stood on the edge watching the black water pass below.

Maddy called out, "I wouldn't recommend jumping. The water is awfully cold this time of year."

John turned, seeing her for the first time.

"You wouldn't like it, plus that water's pretty dirty, there are plenty of better places to throw yourself in."

John stepped down from the railing. He looked at Maddy. "Do I know you?" he asked her.

"Could be, but people don't usually admit to knowing people like me." Maddy said.

"It's just, you look familiar." John said, "I know that I've seen you somewhere before."

"It is possible," Maddy said, "I get around a lot, but I don't think that you've ever given me money that I can remember."

"Yes." He said, "I do remember you. I saw you in the hospital waiting at the desk by the morgue."

Maddy went still. Sorrow made her lip jut out involuntarily, her eyes began to tear up as she remembered.

"Who were you there for?" John asked.

"My husband." Maddy said, "Or he would have been. Ceremonies don't mean much when you're on the streets."

"I'm sorry for your loss." John said, and somehow, it felt better to have heard it. She knew that he meant it, and it seemed as if he was the first person since Abud's death who had said that to her, and really meant it. She began to cry.

"And I am sorry for your loss." Maddy said wiping the tears from her face.

"How did you know?" He began.

"In the hospital, you said Sherlock Holmes. I guess you must forget sometimes that you are famous. I've seen you in the paper loads of times. I don't buy them, but I still read them."

"Famous, yeah." John said looking down at his feet, " I'm not the one who was supposed to be famous." John's mouth suddenly went hard, he lifted his chin and said, "Sherlock Holmes was NOT a fake!"

"I know." Maddy said, "All of us here know. You can't lie to the people who find the bodies. I know that Sherlock Holmes was the real thing."

John looked at Maddy with a hunger as if he had been starving for someone to say just that to him for a long, long, time. He smiled. "What's your name?" He asked.

"My name is Maddy." She said.

"Hello, my name is John," he reached out his hand to her.

"I know," she said taking his warm hand into her cold one.

"Ah, the papers!" he said.

She nodded and he smiled. "It's nice to meet you, Maddy." John said.

"It's nice to meet you too, John." Maddy said. "Do you, by any chance, have some food on you?"

John laughed. " No," he said, "but I bet that we could find something, my treat."

"I was hoping that you would say that." Maddy said. "Otherwise, we might be hunting for pigeon."

John laughed again, "Pigeon? Did you know that in some parts of the world, they are considered quite a delicacy?"

"They aren't considered one here." Maddy said, as they walked off the bridge together laughing.

Maddy had lost her way to reach Sherlock, she had lost her way in life. She didn't know how to protect John. She couldn't even protect herself, and she had sorrows that weighed her down. Sorrows that seemed at times too great to carry. But John had sorrows too, and if there was one thing that Maddy had learned from living on the streets, it was that burdens are easier to carry if you don't have to carry them alone.

End Homeless Maddy

Aless Nox

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Homeless Maddy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/895822) by [AlessNox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlessNox/pseuds/AlessNox)




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